Travelsim, First Impressions

[Effendi]

I just received my Travelsim today... and it has some problems!

Here are my experiments:
- Italy landline: ok
- Italy mobile: no (Wind, 3)
- Germany landline: ok
- Germany mobile: no (O2)
- Czech mobile: no (Oskar, T-Mobile, Eurotel)
- Croatia mobile: no (T-Mobile)
- Austria mobile no (T-Mobile) (OnZoone help number :P)
- Lithuania mobile: ok (Bite)
- Latvia mobile: ok (Amigo)
- Estonia mobile: ok (Elisa, Tele2)
- Poland mobile: ok (Plus, Era)
- New Zeland mobile: ok (Vodafone)
- Russia mobile: ok (Tele2)

I cannot call any Italian, German, Austrian, Croatian or Czech mobile, while it works with both Italian and German landline. When I try to call a mobile I receive the pop-up message "unknown format?" instead the "please wait" one.

When the callback works I hear the voice with my credit, the quality is more than poor.
I'm roaming on TIM net and using the SonyEricsson Z1010 UMTS/GSM phone, with direct calling.

[Effendi]

If I use the call menu on the sim toolkit it works also with Italian and German mobile numbers (didn't try the Czech and Croatian, but I think they work as well), but I cannot use the address book, which is quite a bad thing.

If I try to check my credit, either dialing 099 or using the sim toolkit I get a popup which says "postpaid client"...

[Effendi]

Another quite weird thing... I manually selected Wind GSM network, I connected to it and tried to direct call my Wind number with no success. Then it automatically moved to Wind 3G network, and after few seconds to "SOS calls only" and after 1 minute back to TIM.
I repeated the same thing with Vodafone and it kept the GSM network with no problems., so I selected Vodafone 3G network manually but it didn't connect. Looking on GSMWorld, EMT has 3G agreements with all the 3 GSM/UMTS network operators in Italy, but travelsim works on GSM only.

[Effendi]

Another really strange thing: among the "preferred networks", at the last place, there is this code "316 01", and if I'm not wrong it's Nextel, the iDEN network in the USA. Not very useful on my GSM/UMTS phone!

I tried then to call myself from my 3 number... on Travelsim phone it didn't appear my 3 number, but this one: +372.6868097, which is a geographical number, Estonia, Tallinn district (new digital number). If I try to call it, it rings!
So there is a triangulation also for incoming calls, in fact I couldn't hear any free of busy tone on the 3 phone until I accepted/denied the call on the Travelsim phone.

[Effendi]

With the Siemens S55 it works perfectly with Italian and German mobiles directly. As usual Siemens has the best automatic callback system...

[AndreA]

I had my Travelsim yestarday too

Similar test, but using a S55 and 2 Nokia handsets I had best results without any problem for outgoing calls.

About SMS good news; it's quite strange to have 2 different numbers (1 for voice calls, 1 for sms) but no problem with major networks for incoming/outgoing. I had troubles only with 3ITA, but H3G Italy is really crappy for international SMS...

[AndreA]

About 3G roaming I had the same results... but it's no simply to understand the problem. Maybe EMTS doesn't have a umts agreement for this kind of numeration, Orange CH PrePay has a similar problem abroad for example.

[0700700]

i just want to see you can call bulgaria

[AndreA]

i just called you... i found a busy tone, is it possible?

[Effendi]

The same here, I get a busy tone... nice number!